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CINCINNATI CONVENTION,
OCTOBER 18, 1864
, x^^i,
the OE,c3-^nsrizA.Tio^r op :jl peace ^^ldbtit;
UPON
STATE-RIGHTS, ' JEFFERSONIAN, DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES
AND FOE THE
PROMOTION OF PEACE AND INDEPENDENT NOMINATIONS
FOR PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT
OF THE UNITED STATES.
FIRST DAY— October 18, 1864.
The Peace Convention met at the Lecture
Room in the Catholic Institute, October 18, at
10 o'clock. About fifty delegate? were pre-
sent. A temporary organization was effected
by appointing Hon. Win. M. Corry, Chairman,
and John Cahill, Secretary.
On motion of Hon. Alexander Long, of Ohio,
a Committee of three was appointed by the
Chair, on permanent organization, consisting
of Oliver Brown, Esq., Geo. F. Hoeffer, Esq.,
and B. P. Churchill, Esq.
On motion of Hon. James W. Singleton, of
Illinois, a Committee of seven was appointed
by the Chair, on resolutions and address, con-
sisting of Hon. J. W. Singleton, of Illinois,
I. J. Miller, Esq., of Ohio, Josiah Snow, Esq.(
«f Illinois, Hon. Alex. Long, of Ohio, Hon.
Lafe Devlin, of Indiana, Hon. Wm. Cornell
Jewett, of Pennsylvania, and by action of the
Convention, Hon. Wm. M. Corry, of Ohio.
On motion of Hon. Wm. Cornell Jewett, —
That in view of the important responsibility
upon the Convention to make independent
nominations, for the purpose of organizing a
Peace party upon sound State-Rights, Demo-
cratic principles, be it
Retolced, That a Committee of three he appointed to
report to thia Convention suitable candidates for Tresi-
lent and Vice-President of the United States.
Pending thia motion, which was discussed
at length, the Convention adjourned until 2
P.M.
Upon the reassembling of the Convention
at 2 P. M., the Committee on organization re-
ported for permanent officers, Hon. Wm. M.
Corry, Chairman, and S. A. Miller, and Daniel
S. Dana, Secretaries.
The discussion on the subject of nominations
was then resumed, pending which a motion to
adjourn until 9 o'clock, A. M., the 19th inst.,
was carried for the purpose of giving the Com-
mittee on resolutions and principles time to
report.
SECOND DAY— October 19, 1864.
Pursuant to adjournment, the Peace Con-
vention assembled at the Catholic Institute at
9 A. M.
By unanimous consent, action upon the reso-
lutions for a Committee on Candidates for
Ti-esident and Vice-President, was postponed
for the purpose of hearing the report of Com-
mittee on resolutions.
The resolutions of the Committee were re?
ceived and read.
Action was then taken section by section
and they were all passed.
On motion of General Singleton it was
Resolved, That wo approve and indorse the action anl
resolutions' of the Democracy of Franklin county, S?w
Tork, on the 11th of October, 1804, as published in tliq
Franklin Gazette of the 15th inst., and pledge to soiJ
DetnocrucT our h?arty eo-ooarariou. Carried.
\
.C.65.
z-«
On motion of Hon. Amos Green, of Illinois,
it was
Resolved, That for the purpose of perfecting this or-
ganization a Committee to consist of two members from
each State be appointed as an Executive Committee, and
that the President of this Convention notify the gentle-
men so appointed, and request an acceptance upon their
part of such appointment. Carried.
Convention adjourned to 7 P. M.
EVENING SESSION, Oct. 19, 1864.
Convention re-assembled at 7 P. M. The
Committee on resolutions reported an address,
■which was received and adopted. The Con-
vention then discussed the propriety of nomi-
nations under the resolution introduced by
Hon. W. C. Jewett. The resolution was adopt-
ed and a Committee appointed consisting of
Hon. W. C. Jewett, Hon. J. W. Singleton and
Lafe Devlin, Esq.
The Chairman of the Committee reported
that they were unanimous in favor of Hon.
Alex. Long, for President and unable to pro-
cure his assent or to harmonise upon another
candidate, but asked for further time to report.
This elicited a debate upon the propriety of
dispensing with nominations, and presenting
to the people the resolutions and address, with
the proceedings of the Convention, as the basis
of an organization of the peace party.
Hon. James W. Singleton, Mr. I. J. Miller,
Mr. Josiah Snow, Mr. Lafe Devlin, Hon. Alex-
ander Long, Hon. William Cornell Jewett, Hon.
W. M. Cony, Committee on resolutions and ad-
dress, reported the following resolutions, com-
plete, as adopted by the Convention.
PREAMBLE.
Whereas, The Chicago Convention has distinctly repu-
diated Democratic principles, and nominated General
McClellan, who has responded to the platform by his war
record, but the Peace and State Rights Democracy scout-
ing the whole proceedings, have no idea of surrendering
their doctrines ; Therefore, this Convention of the party
is determined to place our cause on its principles, so as to
keep before the people, the great question of Peace or
War, and the vital matter of State Sovereignty, Which is
tho ultimate and omnipotent power of the federal system
and our only protection for liberty within the United
States.
That as our fathers did, so do wo stand by the first
Kentucky Resolutions of 17i)H, as written by Thomas Jef-
'i moii, which was the doctrine of the party for sixty-five
years, until rejected at Chicago. It saved the party of
that day from the Hamc consolidation which is now im-
pending over us, and which resolution is in these words :
1 Resolved, That tho several States composing the
United States, aro not united on the principle of unlim-
ited submission to their General Government; but that
by a compact, under the style and title of a Constitution
for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they
constituted a General Government for special purposes —
delegated to tho Government certain definite powers, re-
serving each State to itself, tho residuary mass of right
to thoir Belf-goverumeut ; and that whenever the General
Government assumes nndelegated power, its acts are cn»
authoritative, void, and of no force ; that to this compact
each State acceded as a State, and is an iutegral party, its
co-States formiug, as to itself, the other party ; that the
Government created by this compact Jwas not made the
exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers dele-
gated to itself, since that would have made its discretion,
and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers: but
that, as in all other cases of compact among powers hav-
ing no common judge, each party has an equal right to
judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and
measure of redress.
2. Resolved, That as Jefferson made the rugged issne of
doctrine with Adams, so must we make it with the Fede-
ral Administration, if we would resist effectually the
infinitely greater dangers which surround us. We do,
consequently, declare the wak wholly unconstitutional,
and on that ground we hold it should be stopped. If a
majority of the copartnership-States can retain a member
by force, they may expel one by force, which has not yet
been pretended by anybody. The Federal Agency, at
Washington, backed up by a majority of the StateB in
Congress, without right, in the vain attempt to subjugate
the minority of the States, is destroying their liberty,
and crushing the federal system to atoms by thus attack-
ing the Constitution. The Administration, and that
majority, are the real enemies of the Union, which can
not, and ought not to exist after its conditions are de-
stroyed. The Chicago Platform, and General McClellan
and his war-record letter, which he has laid over it,
must all be repudiated by Democrats for the same reason.
If we admit that tho war is constitutional, we must not
murmur at the monstrous abuses which attend it, for
they all naturally grow out of the original atrocity.
The evils of paper money, of protective tariff, of the
public debt; the military draft; the military governors;
the arbitrary arrest ; the provost marshals ; the fifteen
bastiles : the drum-head courts-martial; the bayonet
elections ; the padlocked lips ; the fettered press ; the
wholesale confiscation ; the constructive treason ; our
immense armies and navies, are mere incidents of the war
itself, and so are President Lincoln's futile proclamations
of slave emancipation, and his general amnesties. Half
truths and narrow issues, have been the bane of Democra-
cy for many years, and they have so contracted the minds
and hearts of Democrats that all sense of justice, and all
knowledge of constitutional law which sat there so long
enthroned, have departed, and left us an easy prey to the
violence of President Lincoln's Administration, and to
corrupt managers of our own party in State and National
Conventions.
3. Resolved. That wo are directly opposed to all schemes
of abolition and consolidation, and we not only adopt
Jefferson's first Keutucky Resolution as our political
creed — every word of it— but we declare that the time has
come, by agitation, organization and combination, to put
it in practice. The Abolitionists and consolidationists,
whether they call themselves Republicans or Democrats,
have a constitutional aversion to it, which proves, if
proof were wanting, that it should be our remedy for the
evils of the country, our plan for making the Federal
Constitution, instead of personal ambition, vengeance,
ignorance or audacity, the measure of Federal powers
over the States and the people.
4. Resolved, That the enormous and accumulating pnb-
lic debt is coming down like an avalanche, to bury our
property with our liberties, and to make the lives of
millions of poor men, women ami children an intolerable
burthen. The time has come to sound the alarm to all
producers, the mechanics and laborers, but especially the
farmers. Agriculture is the employment of three-fourths
of the American people, and by far the most important
of all others; the characters of those engaged in it con-
form entirely to free institutions, and likewise to light
taxes, peace measures, peace pclicy, and peace establish*
rneiits, responsible rulers and strict construction of the
Constitution. Self-], reservation for them, requires a
Peace and State-rights Platform, and Peace and State-
rights candidates, but, as indispensable to those, an im-
mediate separation of the federal from the financial
power, by the election of a President who will have jus-
tice done to all pursuits and sections in respect of the
public debt. Five billions have already been spent for
prosecution of the war, and some of it is funded and non-
taxable, much of it is still to be funded, and the struggle
in Congress will be to exempt the most luxurious and
s
idle means of living from taxation altogether, while the
rich man's field is fattened by the sweat of the poor inau's
hrow. Laud and tabor are thns overcharged with public
expenses. Much of the debt was incurred in paper money
<it two for one, so that it will double in eight years ; and
all the special legislation it asks of Congress will be ap-
proved by Lincoln or McClellan. The result will surely
be to deliver over the agricultural States to bondage, and
their people to serfdom, even changing the titles in fee
simple to leaseholds, containing covenants for rendering
an annual yield to ttie Government of every third bushel
at grain, and every third stack in the field, and every
third animal of the increase of the herds and flocks, to
pay public officers and public creditors.
5. Resolved, That the universal interests of the people
of all the States require that the Democracy should abso-
lutely deny the fanatical charges of Abolitionists against
negro slavery and slave-holders , and that for the welfare
of our own laborers, as well as the cause of truth, we de-
clare that negro slavery among the mingled millions of
Southern whites and blacks is the only possible condition
of prosperous society. The slave-holder is wise and just
in his organization of his thought and labor, for tho
presence of his helpless slaves compels him to set tasks
for them, and to require obedience from a childish and-in-
ferior race, that must be subsisted ; but have not the
laculty of seif-preBervatioii in contact with their supe-
riors.
That the Democracy should also denounce and deride
the protective tariff system, by which New England
fleeces all tho other sections ; and the kindred imposition
of papor money, issued in contempt of the Constitution
by the Treasury and by private banks on the basis of the
public stocks, which is another disastrous monopoly of
capital overlabor; but above all, the forcible conscrip-
tion of the State militia, by millions, for war on the
South; all which unconstitutional, demoralizing, and
degrading measures have aggravated, ten-fold, the con-
summate wickedness and folly of the attempt at subjuga-
tion of the seceded States.
Resolved, That in presenting to the people these reso-
lutions and principles, we do appeal to the Almighty for
the rectitude of our purposes and the purity of our mo-
tives, and do proclaim that our reliance for sttccess is
upon God.
Resolved, That utterly repudiating all selfish, partisan
and factious views; convened to promote the peace and
welfare of tho Dniled States of America; deeming the
people of the Confederate States brothers in blood, and
as an indispensable means to perpetuate State rights and
free institutions, we should make all possible efforts to
join them in a mutual policy of unconditional negotiation
for the attainment of peace, and that in view of the peril
of our institutions, the people should sanction this course.
Carried.
At 9 P. M., the discussion was resumed upon
the report of the Committee on Nominations,
that they had been unable to harmonize on can-
didates for President and Vice-President of the
United States, and asked for further time. The
argument was participated in by Hon. Alex.
Long, of Ohio, Hon. \V. M. Corry, of Ohio, Hon.
James W. Singleton, of Illinois, Hon. W. C.
Jewett, Hon. Lafe Devlin, of Indiana, Mr. Miller,
« Mr. Thomas, Mr. Dana, Mr. YV. M. Peters, and
others.
Hon. Alexander Long, of Ohio, addressed the
Convention at length, explaining his position,
and his desire to harmonize upon a platform, un-
der strict Democratic principles, on the basis of a
peace party. He said he desired the indulgence
of the Convention for a few moments.
He had declined to unite in an independent
movement at Chicago, immediately after the
nomination -of General McClellan, upon the
ground that having remained in the Convention
and participated in its deliberations, much as
he was opposed, both to the platform and nom-
inee, he considered himself bound by its, action.
The letter of acceptance (so called) of Gen-
eral McClellan, repudiating the platform and
proclaiming one of his own, by which he pro-
posed to commit the Democratic party, not only
to his war policy, but also to his infamous
record, had absolved, not only him, but the
whole Democratic party, from any obligation to
his support. Hence he had favored an indepen-
dent nomination at Columbus, upon true demo-
cratic principles, and had in like manner co-
operated with the advocates of a nomination in
this convention. But while he fully appreciated
the high compliment proposed to be conferred
upan him; willing as he was to make almost any
sacrifice in the cause of peace and for the promo-
tion of State Rights and the security of personal
liberty, he felt justified in declining the compli-
ment, and he had resisted, during the past two
days, the most urgent and persistent appeals of
his friends to accept a nomination. He did not
believe that any representative man could be
found, at this late day, who would be willing to
accept a nomination. The Convention had with,
perfect unanimity adopted a platform of prin-
ciples, and an address to the people. He be-
lieved they had, accomplished all that could be
done until after the election, and he was, there-
fore, in favor of discharging the committee, and
adjourning the Convention, sine die.
Hon. W. M. Corry called Hon. Jas. W.
Singleton to the chair, and in a speech of
great force and power, opposed the views as
expressed by the honorable gentlemen from
Ohio, and favoring a nomination. Mr. Corry
said he was a determined, frank and earnest
man. He had taken part in the deliberations
of this body with pride, but he was not oon-
tent with the proposed conclusion of the Com-
mittee. The nomination of peace and State-
rights candidates was worth more than all be-
sides as a legitimate and powerful means to
secure the ultimate and complete success of
the objects of the Convention. He maintained
that it was the duty of all the subscribers to
the organic law of the Convention, to make
such nominations. If they were foregone, the
the exertions we had so bravely made to re-
construct American liberty upon the time-
honored principles of Jefferson, were fruitless.
1$; He urged at length the great advantages to
the country to be" derived from the bold, sound
and independent principles set forth in the
resolutions. The opportunity should now be
given to the sincere Peace and State Rights
men of the country to rally around an irre-
sistable doctrine, through our nomination. He
hoped the discordant element in the Conven-
tion which endeavored to defeat the earnest
and pure purposes of himself and other like-
thinking delegates, would not prevail. We
were all deeply interested in the organization
of the opposition to the Republican party, by
putting our own representative men in the
field at once; not with any hope of election;
without much expectation of general support,
in consequence of the lateness of the hour,
but to send a thrill of delight through the
despondent bosoms of Democrats, whose lead-
ers at Chicago had abandoned the cause of
peace and State rights, to the corrupt advo-
cates of war and consolidation.
It would do more ; it would prevent these
name false leaders from soon again betraying
the party and the country. We ought now to
designate our standard-bearer by a unanimous
vote of confidence, so that after the approach-
ing defeat of the Democratic party, he could
push back from the leadership, the old and
vile betrayers of our true men and principles ;
otherwise, he expected the party to be victimi-
sed for the hundredth time by the same men
who had led them so often to defeat ; never to
victory: for even success with them cost us as
much as the triumphs of Pyhrrus. Let us, to-
night, seize the future government of the party,
with a view to the restoration of a cheap,
Bimple and responsible federal system for the
United States, no matter what became of the
is%ue of this terrible war. The time had arriv-
ed to choose our leaders and he wanted it done.
He gave to it his heart and hand.
Mr. Corry was followed by General Single-
ton, who, in an able, forcible and earnest sup-
port of the views, as expressed by Mr. Long,
said no man was more earnest in his desire for
a nomination of some man whose principles
and character would be in harnmny with the
platform we have just adopt ed-^-he would not
have attended the Convention if he had sup-
posed, before leaving home, that such a result.
as is now inevitable, at all probable — but the
distinguished and honorable gentleman from
Ohio (Mr. Long) to whom all eyes had been
directed, having been tendered and declined
a nomination, for motives and reasons which,
if not entirely satisfactory to all of his friends
present, are at least highly creditable to the
gentleman himself — we are driven to the ne-
cessity of canvassing the character and opin-
ions of others not present, and to secure their
consent, before we, can accomplish the much-
desired and important result. In view of the
fact that a majority present are unwilling to
protract the session beyond to-night, and the
utter impossibility of acting understandingly
to-night, and in consideration that great good
has already been accomplish^!, our happy and
harmonious results should not be tarnished by
hasty and inconsiderate action in making a
nomination of persons whose opinions and
wishes can not be consulted to-night. I am
ready to acquiece in the necessity of tempora-
rily foregoing such nominations, with a view
to further consultation with absent friends,
and a future meeting for such purpose after
M'- Lincoln shall have been re-elected.
I therefore move that this convention do
now adjourn sine die
Hon. W. C. Jcwett followed General Sin-
gleton in an impressive appeal in opposition
to Mr. Long and General Singleton, and iu
support of the chair, favoring nominations.
He stated the impossibility of his harmon-
izing with the Committee, in commending
that the Convention adjourn without nom-
inating. He admitted the difficulty of ob-
taining representative men and leading em-
inent advocates of true Democratic prin-
ciples, independent of the difficulty that
many who would support the action of this
Convention were just pledged to support Gen'l
McClellan. He believed, however, if time was
given for telegraphs, suitable nominations
could be made. He expressed his sincere and
earnest desire that, for the cause of liberty,
peace and the representation of a principle,
that a nomination should be made. He deemed
a nomination indispensable, not for immediate
victory, but as a standard around which the
now smothered peace sentiment and Jeffer-
sonian principles could gather for ultimate
success. General McClellan had deserted, in
his letter of acceptance, not only the time-
honored principles of our institutions, but
had repudiated the very power who had given
him the nomination at Chicago — for he was
pledged to a war platform. He conld not,
therefore, from principle, support General Mc-
Clellan, nor could he justify that portion of the
peace party who now allow themselves to be led
by a man who had been false to them, by not
refusing the nomination, without an indorse-
ment of their platform for peace ; and when
not indorsed, in their not making independent
nominations. He rejoiced in the success of
the Convention, through their declaration of
principles, while he regretted the disposition
now in the majority to postpone nominations.
He, in conclusion, desired to proclaim his
opposition to the proposed action of this body
to adjourn sine die to defeat nominations. He
said: "I do protest against it in the name of
humanity, in the name of liberty, in the name
of "God, from its fatal consequence, to Repub-
lican liberty."
The discussion was continued until after
midnight, resulting in the success of a motion
to adjourn, sine die, postponing further action
upon nominations. *
THE ADDRESS.
Mr. Singleton from the Committee on reso-
lutions, platform, and address, submitted th»
following, which,was unanimously adopted ;
The Chicago Convention were a body'of men
professing to represent the great principles of
American Democracy. There could be no dif-
ference of opinion as to what those principles
were. They had been stamped upon every
Democratic platform from the organization of
the party to the moment of its fatal dissolution.
They had been borne upon the breath of every
Democratic statesman from Jefferson down.
They had been proclaimed for near three-
quarters of a century by the merest tyros is
politics, from every stand and stump in our
land.
Hostility to the existing war, growing out
of a political education thus obtained, and utter
abhorrence of fraternal strife, was the pre-
dominating feeling of the Democratic masses.
The resolutions of 1798-9, prepared by Jeffer-
son and Madison, were cherished by them as
the organic law of their party. They con-
demned alike the war, its measures, its evils, its
excesses, and its advocates.
The masses without, and the delegates within
the Convention clamored for peace, denied the
power of the federal government to coerce a
sovereign State and continue a war of extermi-
nation against its people. No Democratic
speaker in or out of ihe Convention dared to
advocate a continuance of the war under any
leadership or pretense whatever. And yet the
result of its deliberations, is a war candidate
and a war platform. Deeds, and not profes-
sions, are the mirror reflecting political truth ;
and by applying this test to the Chicago Con-
vention, we shall be able to understand the
principles which lie at the bottom of the poli-
tical system represented by Gen. McClellan.
The Chicago Convention assembled after both
Lincoln and Fremont had been nominated
upon consolidation and abolition platforms
as war candidates, pledged to subjugate the
South and emancipate the slaves, which means
not only the annihilation of the Southern State
governments and the Southern State society ;
it means something quite as tragical, i. e. the
destruction of our federal system already
almost consolidated by repeated and extreme
violence, and the reorganizition of Northern So-
ciety, on the new basis of class distinction instead
of Democratic equality. While using the poor
young white men of the North to destroy the
South, the aristocrats have kept their sons out
of danger; and they have absorbed all the pro-
ductions of the country, sold them to be wasted
in war at great profit to themselves, and now
hold a creditor's claim on us for the whole
amount, probably five thousand millions or the
total value of all the North West. This claim
is funded or to be funded, permanently bearing
an interest of which producers, whether me-
chanics, farmers or laborers, will have the
expenses of collection as well as interest to pay
for about three hundred millions of dollars
per annum; or fifty millions for Ohio, five mil-
lions for this city. The public debt is owned
by the East; its principal weight will fall on
the West, and it will require on all hands the
most constant vigilance and perfect honesty to
preserve our institutions and do both sections
justice. This most alarming sum of five thou-
sand millions of wasted property already
threatens our system. It will far more than
tithe the fields; it will double tithe them:
«very third bushel will have to go for this dead
horse, and those who booted and spurred will
galvanize and ride him over the agriculturists
rough shod. For this debt the farmers have
not yet been directly taxed ; their time is at
hand, and they are most deeply interested ia
the question who shall be the next President.
The interest and cost of the public debt; the
army expenses ofJ half a million of men, of
themselves, must make a wreck of our institu-
tions; for with the machinery of old countries
like England and France, we will soon arrive
at their despotic form of government. The
cause involves the effect; the premises the con-
clusion, and if we decide to carry on the war
according to Lincoln and McClellan, so as to
merge all our remaining property in public
stocks, bearing interest and exempt from taxes,
we are the most willing slaves that ever ex-
isted; we offer a premium for a master; and he
will be a military master of course. There are
other reasons why we are on the downward
road from the best government in the world to
the worst: from freedom to despotism. In this
suicidal war our officers have violated all the
provisions of the Constitution, as well as itg
spirit; we have no more free speech, free press,
free elections, and free people, or responsible
rulers; but we obey the military and semi-
military orders of a new set of lords, whose
sovereign will is the supreme law of the land.
It was a part of the system of southern subju-
gation to extinguish southern liberty, and it
has been far more faithfully achieved than its
counterpart. \
What should the Convention have done ?
What was expected of them? What will the
people decide upon this most indispensable
appeal ?
•They should have done three things :
I. Declared the Jeffersonian doctrine of the
Democratic party as the platform.
II. They should have placed their standard
in the hands of a Representative candidate.
III. They should have applied the true inter-
pretation of the Constitution contained in ihe
Resolutions of 1798, to the crisis.
I. They should have declared plainly the
principles of the party. What did they do?
They contemptuously rejected them, spurned
them under foot. They pretended to refer the
first Kentucky Resolution for State Rights to a
committee, while they instantly adopted the
consolidation platform of New York.
For sixty-five years the Kentucky and Vir-
ginia Resolutions have been the basis of the
Democracy : they are the Scriptures of the
party. They have been announced as the
democratic creed as a matter of course, by
every statesman speaking at &uy time or place
or in any manner for his party. But to that
corrupt Convention, they were a charmed talis-
man to expose their fraudulent platform; lor
Thomas Jefferson the father of democracy had
organized them as a Peace party as well as a
State Rights party, and forbade the cement of
blood in the federal structure, as the sound of
the hammer was not allowed by the builders of
the temple. The committee designedly sup-
pressed the Resolutions in order to establish
war and consolidation as the democratic doc-
trine, and Hamilton and New York instead of
Jefferson and Virginia, as the oracles of the
Constitution.
Fellow citizens, there is not only no provi-
sion for liberty, there is no hope of liberty in
a great territory like the United States, but by
the true federal system under which each State
has two constitutions, and two sets of officers,
one for domestic, and the other for foreign
purposes. If the federal officers at Washington
City control the whole consolidated system, we
have a despotism of the worst form, the despo-
tism of the mere majority ; which is worse, be-
cause more irresponsible than the despotism
of Russia: the Czar has but one neck, our
tyrant would be hydra-headed. Jefferson, the
democrat, taught the sovereignty, independence
and equality of the several states, and their
voluntary Union under the federal constitu-
tion. But Story and Webster, after the Adamses
and Hamilton, held that the sovereignty of the
States is a falsehood, and that a majority
federal government may do as it pleases with
the rights of the States and of the people. If
that were so, there would be no propriety in
having a solemn written constitution for the
protection of the minority, or the restraint of
the majority. If that were so, then the majo-
rity of Congress like the British Parliament
Would be omnipotent, which has hardly become
American doctrine. If that be so, that majority
could expel a member from the Union as well
as coerce one or more to remain by force, which
13 not yet openly pretended. The truth, which
science will at last vindicate against all old
and recent errors is, that the federal Constitu-
tion is the voluntary compact of Union for
each State which consents to it, each with all,
the co-states being the other party ; that it is
a continuing compact, and that all its powers
are government trust powers; and not rights,
tor sovereign powers ; and that they are dele-
gated only, and not inherent; nor do in any
wise impair the constitution making, altering,
and breaking power, which is the ultimate
power of the people of each State, over every,
part of the whole system, so far as its citizens
are concerned. " The people " of a State is the
organized totality of all its inhabitants, which
people alone is the depositary of the sovereignty.
The Chicago Convention have left the true
narrow path of the Constitution, and followed
the broad road, trodden lately plainer than
ever by the armed feet of military forces,
downward into the Pandemonium of War;
almost civil war; war between brethren and
kindred States.
We can not be thus misled. We point out
the better way. We implore the people to
follow the old Jeffersonian standard of Peace
and State Rights.
II. That standard should be borne aloft by
a representative man. Instead of a represen-
tative man like the great statesmen of the
Revolution, we are asked to support a well
known but rather ordinary Major General, to
whose disabilities as a democratic candidate
for the Presidency, we intend to devote a large
part of this address. We do it with a formed
design of influencing democrats not to vote for
him, but rather to allow the election to go as
it may while they stay at home. The evil
counsels and the dictatorial doings of Gen. Mc-
Clellan have always led President Lincoln's
advance. Indeed, there is not one objection
that Democrats have made to Mr. Lincoln's
theories, not one malediction of Mr. Lincoln's
acts which is not true of Gen. McClellan.
Their records are as like as they could be;
and if thev had exchanged their positions in
this unhallowed strife, their failures would
have been identical. With what power of face
must any man be gifted to enable him to call
upon Democrats after four years specific curs-
ing of Lincoln and Lincolnism, to vote for his
right hand man McClellan, for President?
And that too, when the people's agony and in-
dignation had but one cry, peace, peace, peace,
immediate peace; and but one hope, on earth
as in heaven, in blessed peace : a peace which
among brethren is always honorable, and be-
tween brethren can always be made by good
will on honorable terms. Christ himself, in
the sermon from the sacred mount, called the
peacemakers the children of God.
Every member of the Democratic party had a
right to expect — yea, demand — that the Con-
vention should conform their action to the usages
and priuciples of the party they proposed to
represent. That their candidate should be chosen
from that party, and committed to its princi-
ples. That in making their selection of a can-
didate for the Presidency, the popular will in
reference to existing issues would be con-
sulted. Many months before the Convention as-
sembled, well grounded suspicions were indulg-
ed, that efforts would be made by the combined
power of foreign and domestic capital to con-
trol its action, and secure the nomination of a
military man committed to their schemes of
centralization. And it is with the deepest mor-
tification and regret that your Committee are
constrained to yield to the conviction that such
a result was fully attained by the nomination
of Gen. Geo. B. McClellan, who was then and is \
now a Major General in the United States
army, holding the office for life with a salary
of $8,000 per year, which appointment was
conferred upon him by Mr. Lincoln, since the
commencement of the existing war, as hhpledged
and faithful friend.
Had a Butler, Stanton, Banks or Cameron,
been selected by the Convention, or even
Mr. Lincoln himself, a greater antagonism be-
tween the principles of the party and its can-
didate could not have been produced. Like
Butler, Stanton, Banks and Cameron, Gen. Mc-
Clellan entered upon the present administration
in full fellowship and sympathy with Mr. Lin-
coln and his party. He followed Mr. Lincoln
as long and as far as Mr. Lincoln would permit
him to follow, and it is no fault of Gen. Mc-
Clellan's that he is not now acting in haranny
with Mr. Lincoln and his administration. The
fault is Mr. Lincoln's, who relieved him of his
command, and sent him in disgrace to report to
his wife in New Jersey. No man has ever done
so much to give to Mr. Lincoln's administration
its worst and most objectionable features as
Gen. McClellan. Every outrage of which the
Democratic masses have complained, and
against which they have so often resolved was
either originated*, recommended, or approved,
by Gen. McClellan during his connection with
Mr. Lincoln. Arbitrary arrests, the draft,
military interference with slavery, and the
ballot box, suspension of habeas corpus, are
all the pet offsprings of his military genius.
We shall not attempt to convince you of these
painful truths by our own arguments or decla-
ration : but will proceed at once to direct your
attention to the record of stubborn facts, made
by Gen. McClellan himself, and published by
order of the Congress of the United States.
In the first t>f£cial communication of Gen.
McClellan to Mr. Lincoln, dated 4th of August,
1861, he uses this language: "The purpose of
ordinary war is to conquer a peace, and make
a treaty upon advantageous terms; in this con-
test it has become necessary to crush a population
sufficiently numerous, intelligent and warlike,
to constitute a nation." Fellow-democrats, we
beseech you to pause and blush, if you do not
weep, for the honor of our cause. Our party
are the peculiar advocates of the great American
theory — that the people are the source of power
and that all governments derive their just au-
thority from the consent of the governed. And
yet it is proposed that we shall give our support
to a man for the Presidenc}', whose unsheathed
sword is still dripping with the blood of his
slain, who is booted and spurred for war, with
the declaration of a hellish wrath clinging to his
lips, that this war must be continued until we
" crush " eight millions of our kindred and
countrymen, because they are " sufficiently
numerous, intelligent and warlike to become
a nation."
Again, in the same communication to which
we have referred, this boasted apostle of De-
mocracy while professing to others, to be fight-
ing for the Constitution and Union, advises
Mr. Lincoln to equip an army in Kansas and
Nebraska, to be marched through the Indian
country into Texas ; there to be joined and
supported by another army to be equipped in
California, and marched overland through New
Mexico. For what? To maintain the authority
of the Constitution and restore the Union ? No.
But to abolish slavery and make a free State of
Texas. So anxious was he for the success of
this diabolical scheme, that he advises Mr. Lin-
coln to form an " alliance" with the despotic
government of Mexico to ensure its success ;
assuming and declaring that Mexican anti-
pathy to slavery would make such an alliance
acceptable to them.
The reader will bear in mind that the com-
munication with which we are now dealing was
written by Gen. McClellan to Mr. Lincoln
durins; the first six months of Mr. Lincoln's
administration, and contains the first sugges-
tion ever made to Mr. Lincoln, so far as the
public are informed, of armed military interfer-
ence zvith the institution of slavery.
Fellow Democrats be not startled ; we have a
solemn and painful duty to perform, and we
have entered upon it with the firm purpose of
removing the veil of hypocrisy from the face of
guilt, tearing the cloak of Democracy from the
shoulders of infamy, and exposing the schemes
of those who, under its sacred vesture, are plot-
ting the ruin of our country, and the extermi-
nation of liberty and free government.
Think of it citizens and soldiers — two vast
armies to be organized and equipped three thou-
sand miles apart, to be marched over dreary
deserts and uninhabited regions, at an incalcu-
lable cost of life and treasure, for no other
purpose than to make Texas a free State. The
schemes of Gen. McClellan against slavery,
recommended to Mr. Lincoln, were not confined
to Texas alone, but extended wherever the
tyrant's plea of military necessity could be mads
to prevail, as we shall presently show by refer-
ence to his subsequent communications on the
same subject in their regular order of time.
That you may understand the character of
the man who now asks your suffrages for the
Presidency, his duplicity and hollow pretences,
we beg you to keep in mind the important and
inconteslible truth disclosed by hi* own pub-
lished correspondence, that while h» was recom-
mending to Mr. Lincoln vile schemes for the
destruction of slavery, employing t^e military
power of the country to carry elections for the
Republican party, and asserting that our
brethren of the South should be '' crushed" be-
cause they are "intelligent and ivarlike," he is
with the same pen writing to Halleck, Burn-
side and Buell, and impressing upon them the
importance of making the people believe that
the war was prosecuted solely to restore the
Union and re-establish the authority of the
Constitution.
In his letter of instruction to Gen. Burnside,
Commanding Expedition to North Carolina,
dated 7th of January, 1862, he advises that
officer to " say as little as possible about poli-
tics or the negro," it would not suit in that
latitude, and at that time ; but in his letter to
Gen. Buell of the 7th November, 1861, he says,
'• It is possible that the condnct of our politico^
8
cfairs in Kentucky is more important than that
cf our military operations.''
What political affairs did Gen. McClellan then
hare charge of in Kentucky that were "more
important than our military operations'"' Were
they the political affairs of the Republican
party of which he was then an active member
and willing tool ? or is it possible that they
were the political affairs of the down-trodden
"traitorous copperhead Democracy" as he and
his party are accustomed to call us? We leave
the answer to common sense if there be any
left in the country.
On the subject of arbitrary arrests and the
suspension of the habeas corpus, for which Lin-
coln and his advisers have been so severely cen-
sured, it is only necessary to examine the letters
and orders of Gen. McClellan to know that he is
the author of the system. He was the " Young
Napoleon" of the early days of Mr. Lincoln's
administration, across whose illimitable vision
no shadow dare flit. All the departments of
the government, State and Federal, and even
the people, learned implicit obedience to the
imperial will of this sceptered General, ''wrapt
m the solitude of his own originality."
On the 11th of November, 1861, he writes to
Gen. Halleck, then at St. Louis, referring to a
class of persons who claimed to have military
appointments, he says, "If any of them give
you the slightest trouble, you will at once arrest
them and send them under guard out of the
limits of your department, informing them that
if they return they will be placed in close
confinement.
Could an order be more arbitrary than this?
he .accusation, no trial; but men to be driven
arbitrarily from their homes, their families
their friends; denied even the poor privilege
of remonstrating against such acts of lawless
tyranny, lest they should be immured in some
filthy dungeon to live upon its vapors, and die
like felons.
On the 12th of November, 1861, just one day
after, he writes to Gen. Buell and says, "when
there is good reason to believe that persons are
giving aid, comfort or information to the enemy
it is of course necessary to arrest them " No
ease of military arrest has ever occurred where
the officer ordering the arrest did not claim to
have "good reason for making it," but as such
reason was never required to be given to the
public, or the party arrested, that he might dis-
charge himself from the suspicion or accusation
against him, if any, the public, as well us the
victims of such arbitrary power, have been kept
in utter ignorance of the cause of such arrests.
II Gen. McClellan had respected the authority
oi the Constitution and laws of the country he
would have required that all such persons' as
fie describee, when arres'ed, should be handed
over to the civil authorities for trial and pun-
ishment; to be confronted, with witnesses against
them, and to have compulsory process for wit-
nesses in their favor; but, like all others, 0f
which we have complained, he, in every instance,
lett his subordinates to decide upon the suffi-
ciency of the cause, the mode of trial, and the
extent and character of the punishment. In
fact his orders authorized those under his com-
mand, to arrest with or without cause they
being the judges ; and to punish without accu-
sation or trial, they being both accuser and
judge.
- The arrest and imprisonment of the Maryland
legislature by order of Gen. McClellan is the
crowning evidence of the despotic temper and
arbitrary will of the man, and is justly re-
garded as the most highhanded act of military
tyranny to be found in the annals of history
In this case as in all others we have cited no
shelter can be found for Gen. McClellan under
" superior orders." Each and every case was
the emanation of his own will. The suggestion,
thej^aw of arrest, and imprisonment, of the
unoffending representatives of the people of
Maryland were his own ; the execution of the
plan was intrusted by him to " My Dear Gen
Banks." (See his letter to Gen. Banks on this'
subject.)
Gen. McClellan had no orders from the Presi-
dent or Secretary of War, to commit this vile
and unparalleled outrage upon the sovereignty
ot a State, and the personal rights of the indi-
vidual citizen. A Republican abolition General
of the Army of the United States, in 1861
causes the sovereignty of a State to be invaded
and insulted, its legislature arrested, imprison-
ed, and finally discharged without accusation
or trial, by the same arbitrary will that caused
such arrest and imprisonment, and claims the
support of the State rights, law-abiding Con-
stitution-loving old Democratic party for Presi-
dent, in 1864. How st range it looks does it not?
"A free ballot or a free fight," is now declared
to be the purpose of the Democratic party. And
here permit us respectfully to suggest that it
would be well for you to look into the record of
Gen. McClellan, which he has so arrogantly
made the platform of the party, and ascertain
whether he is willing to go into a "free fio-ht
for a free ballot." The following order issued
by him on the day it bears date will very much
assist your inquiries on this point.
" Headquarters Army of the Potomac,)
Washington, October 29, 1861. '}
"General: There is an apprehension among
Union citizens in many parts of Maryland of
an attempt at interference with their rights of
Suffrage by disunion citizens, on the occasion
of the election to take place on the 6th of No-
vember next.
" In order to prevent this, the Major General
Commanding directs that you send detachments
of a sufficient number of men to the different
points in your vicinity where the elections are
to be held, to protect the Union voters, and to see
that no disunionists are allowed to intimidate
them, or in any way to interfere with their
rights.
9
" He also de3ires you to arrest and hold in
confinement, till after the election, all dis-
unionists who are known to have returned from
Virginia recently, and who show themselves at
the polls, and to guard effectually against any
invasion of the peace and order of the election.
For the purpose of carrying out these instruc-
tions you are authorized to suspend the writ of
habeas corpus. General Stone has received
similar instructions to these. You will please
confer with him as to the particular points that
each shall take the control of.
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient
servant, R. B. Marcy, Chief of Staff.
Major General N. P. Banks, Commanding
Division, Muddy Branch, Md."
The object of the foregoing order is too
transparent for comment; '•'-little Mac" was not
then in favor of a •'• free ballot." On the 29th
of October, 1861, Democrats had no rights in
Maryland that even a " negro was buund to
respect," according to his theory at that time.
He was then in the employment of Mr. Lincoln,
fighting the political battles of the Republican
party in Maryland and Kentucky, where Demo-
crats were called " Copperheads" and "Copper
heads" were called " disunionists," and were not
entitled to vote.
Col. R. B. Marcy, who signs the foregoing
order, is the father-in-law of Gen. McClellan,
and at that time his Chief of Staff. He says in
the order, the " Major General Commanding"
directs, &c. What did the " Major General
Commanding" direct? l8t. That Gen. Stone
and Gen. Banks should send a sufficient num-
ber of soldiers-to each election precinct in the
State of Maryland, to protect " Union voters,"
alias Republican voters. 2d. " He also directs
you to arrest and hold in confinement, until
after the election all disunionists," alias Demo-
crats.
Why " arrest and hold them in confinement
until after the election" except to prevent them
voting, and to deter other Democrats from go-
ing to the polls and making the attempt.
For the purpose of carrying out this detest-
able order, he says to Gen. Banks and Gen.
Stone, " You are authorized to suspend the
writ of habeas corpus." This was the unkindest
cut of all. A man claiming to be the candidate
of the Democratic party for President, suspend-
ing the writ of habeas corpus in or'aer to im-
prison Democrats beyond the relief of the law,
and thereby to prevent them voting, and to
carry the elections of the State of Maryland for
the abolition party.
Reader have you forgotten the history of
that day ? If so, go back to the files of your
old newspapers and examine once more in
shame and scorn the long list of your oppress-
ed countrymen, your down-trodden Democratic
brethren, who were incarcerated in loathsome
prisons by that infamous order of General
McClellan. The ballot box — the last refuge of
freedom destroyed by a Republican Major
General, who now asks your support for Presi-
dent of the United States, having no higher
claim to your confidence and support than that
he has forfeited that of Mr. Lincolns and the
Republican party. We would be glad if the
chapter of his evil deeds and audacious de-
signs could end here; but the culminated
point is still before us and must be told.
Having inaugurated the odious, oppressive
and tyranical system of Provost Marshals,
and arbitrary arrests, and dictated the whole
system of military interference with slavery
as at present practiced, having broken down
and destroyed the ballot box, having recom-
mended or by his own order violated every
right that Democrats hold dear; his next phase
is that of a conspirator against our Constitu-
tion and form of government; prompting Mr.
Lincoln to disregard his Constitutional ad-
visers, turn Cabinet, Congress and courts out
of doors and take upon himself the responsi-
bility of administering the affairs of the gov-
ernment according to his own will. In pur-
suance of the atrocious and astounding scheme,
he addresses Mr. Lincoln a long letter from
Harrison's Landing, Va., dated the 7th of July,
1862, which for audacity of design, and dis-
graceful subserviency is without a model. It is
the most remarkable and extraordinary docu-
ment this war has produced in either section
of our distracted country. Under the pretence of
correcting evils, and introducing a more civi-
lized and christian spirit into the conduct &f
the war, and under cover of the most wise and
patriotic expressions, it adroitly conceals the
glittering gems of a military despotism to
tempt the ambition of the President.
He says to Mr. Lincoln, the 1; time has come,
when the government must determine upon a
civil and military policy, covering the whole
ground of our national trouble. The responsi-
bility of determining, declaring, and supporting
such civil and military policy, and of directing
the whole course of national affairs in regard
to the rebellion must now be assumed and exer-
cised by you Abraham Lincoln, or our cause
will be lost. The Constitution gives you power
even for the present terrible exigency.'' The
substance of the foregoing is, that Mr. Lincoln
should assume to be the government, and take
upon himself the " responsibility" of determin-
ing and declaring its " civil" and "military"
policy. Now we ask what is comprehended in
the civil and military policy of a government?
Is it not the power of making laws, construing
them, and executing them ? Such then is the re-
sponsibility which Mr. Lincoln is recommended
by General McClellan to assume.
Our Constitution has wisely divided the
federal power into three separate, independent
and co-ordinate departments, assigning to each
i its powers and duties, and for the first time in
J our history we are informed that the Presi-
dent who represents one department only,
10
may constitutionally take upon himself the
powers, duties and administration of all the
other departments. It would truly be a " terri-
ble exigency" that would thus construe the
powers of the President, and authorize him
to make his will the law of the land, as Gen-
eral McClellan has advised. What else could
he mean by telling Mr. Lincoln that he must
"assume the responsibility of determining and de-
claring the civil and military policy, and direct-
ing the ivhole course of national affairs, if he
does not. mean to advise him to usurp the
power of the other departments of the govern-
ment. It must be admitted by the most de-
voted admirers of his military genius and
legal learning, that it would be utterly im-
possible for Mr. Lincoln to direct the whole
Bourse of national affairs, as long as the power
of Congress remained to direct him ; that he
could not determine and declare the civil and
military policy of the government, without
silencing Congress and the courts. He could
not " assume" and "exercise" the powers pro-
posed by General McClellan without treason
arid violence.
The civil and military policy which Mr.
Lincoln is advised to determine upon and declare,
is to "cover the whole ground of our national
trouble." Now General McClellan must either
deny that slavery formed any portion of the
ground of our "national trouble" which he
oan not successfully do, or admit that Mr.
Lincoln's proclamation in competition with the
"Popes bull against the comet " were recom-
mended and approved by him. If slavery
entered into the cause or foundation, of our na-
tional troubles as asserted by Mr. Lincoln and
proclaimed by all the Republicans from Maine
to California, it was well known to Gen. McClel-
lan ; and Mr. Lincoln has only taken his fatal
advice in that subject as upon many others of
greater and less degrees of importance. The
animus of this remarkable document can readi-
ly be collected by reading the eighth paragraph
of the letter to which we refer as published in
his report to the Secretary of war.
He proposes to Mr. Lincoln to unite with
him in overthrowing the government he was
aworn to preserve, and establishing upon the
ruins of the Union and the Constitution, a
military despotism of which Mr. Lincoln was
to be the law giver, and he, McClellan, the chief
agent and executor of his will. He says to
Mr. Lincoln: "In carrying out any system
of policy you may form, you will require a
Commander-in-Chief of the army, one who
possesses your confidence, understands your
views, and who is competent to execute your
orders, by directing the military forces of the
nation to the accomplishment of the objects by
you proposed.
I dont ask that place for myself. I am wil-
ling to serve you in such position as you may
assign me, and I will do so as faithfully as
ever subordinate served tujicrior."
Could words be found in the English lan-
guage to express more clearly the unhallowed
purpose and traitorous design of General Mc-
Clellan than those we have quo ed.
If the communication referred to had been
addressed to General McClellan while acting
as Commander-in-Chief of the army, by one
of his subordinate officers, and had fallen
into the hands of the Secretary of War, the
writer would have been promptly arrested,
tried, convicted, and executed under military
law. General McClellan not only proposes to
Mr. Lincoln to commit a high crime by con-
verting the free governmnent of our country
into a military despotism, to be controlled by
the will of Mr. Lincoln alone; but he also
proposes to be the instrument of the foul deed.
He tells Mr. Lincoln, that he, Lincoln, can con-
fide in him, McClellan ; that he, McClellan,
understands his, Lincoln's views, and is com-
petent to execute his, Lincoln's orders; and
that he, McClellan, will take command of the
army and employ it for the accomplishment
of any object he, Lincoln may propose ; but if
Mr. Lincoln will not trust him, McClellan,
with the chief command, he, McClellan is so
anxious to serve him, Lincoln, that he will
accept any other position that he, Lincoln may
choose to assign him, McClellan; and that he,
the said McClellan will serve him, the said
Lincoln as "faithfully as ever subordinate served
superior." It will be observed that the service
proposed by General McClellan is not to the
Country or the cause of the Union and the
Constitution, but to IPhatever course Mr. Lin-
coln may espouse; or whatever object Mr.
Lincoln may prepare. Throughout the entire
prayer of the guilty petitioner, and unscru-
pulous adviser, the words "you" and "your"
are employed. The Constitution, the Union,
the Country, or its cause are not ever alluded to.
Was ever such contemptible subserviency,
such profound obsequiousness, such fawning
sycophaney, such damning guilt before dis-
played by any man aspiring to public confi-
dence and high official position?
Having adverted to the recommendations of
General McClellan on the subject of slavery
in Texas, we are brought in the regular pro-
gress of investigation to the general views on
that subject, as we find them in his letter to
Mr. Lincoln of the 7th of July 1862. In this
boasted communication he admits the power
of Congress to abolish slavery in the States,
and declares that it is the duty of the army to
give slaves protection. His words are as fol-
lows: "Slaves contraband under the Act of
Congress seeking military protection should
receive it." What are slaves contraband?
The word contraband signifies illegal traffic.
And as General McClellan is a man of too
much learning not to understand the true
force and import of his own words, no doubt
can exist as to the idea he means to convey.
In the same connection he says: "the right of
11
the gorernment to appropriate permanently to
it3 own service claims to slave labor should be
asserted'' Either one of these declarations
involves the admission of the power of Con-
gress, or the government, if you please, to
destroy slavery. At this point it may be
useful to enquire what permanent service the
government, could possibly have for negro men,
woman and children, except to make a stand-
ing army of. the men, and support the women
and children at the public expense, as is now
being done, in accordance with General Mc-
Clellan's recommendation.
Having laid down the principle, he pro-
ceeds to tell Mr. Lincoln how it may be applied
80 as to destroy slavery in any given State.
He says this principle of appropriating slave
labor permanently to the service of the govern-
ment "might be extended upon grounds of
military necessity and security, to all the slaves
of a particular State thus working manumision
in such State." The plan here recommended
by General McClellan for the destruction of
slavery, portrays the most insidious, false,
and Jesuitical character this war has evolved;
knavery without boldness, duplicity without
principle, a will without courage, are the lead-
ing characteristics of the man. 'J ake the
slaves he says, by military power, or under
the accursed plea of " military necessity '; and
under the false pretence of appropriating them
permanently to the government service, work
manumision in any given State.
It may be said by the friends of General
McClellan, that while he asserts the right of
the government to appropriate permanently
to its own use claims to slave labor; he also
admits that the right of the owner to compen-
sation therefor, should be recognized. This
fact does not change the principle involved.
The right of the owner to compensation when
his property is taken for public use, is recog-
nized by the laws of the land, and could ac-
quire no additional strength from the sanction
of General McClellan. The admission or re-
cognition of a right where there is -no remedy
for its violation, or power to protect and enjoy
the right, is a very cheap apology for trespass
or crime. Trial by jury is a right reeognized
by the Constitution, yet like the right of the
owner to compensation for his property, it is
wholly disregarded.
When private property is taken for public
use, the owner is entitled to actual compensa-
tion, and not to a mere admission or acknowl-
edgment of a right to get his compensation if
he can. The question is one of power, and not
of reciprocal duty and justice where the object is
in good faith the government service and the
public good. In the case before us the govern-
ment service is, as proposed by General Mc-
Clellan the mere pretext or excuse, while he
admits the main and real object to be the manu-
mision of the negro slaves.
It is also urged in his defense, that he ex-
pressly declares in the same communication,
that "military power should not be allowed
to interfere with the relations of servitude."
The admission of this fact which is cheerfully
made, only establishes the fact that General
McClellan's habit has been to take both sides
of a question, that he might be sure to cheat
some body. The admission can not fail to
place him in such a light, when contrasted
with his distinct plan of manumision under the
plea of military necessity. Tiie antagonism thus
presented between his two propositions, to
interfere, and not to interfere, is perfectly
reconcilable with the whole history and char-
acter of the man as disclosed by his acts,
orders, and correspondence, commencing with
the administration of Mr. Lincoln and termi-
nating with the letter of acceptance. And wo
know of no rule of construction more applica-
ble to the orders and letters of General Mc-
Clellan than that ordinarily applied to Wills
where in case of conflicting claims or devises;
the Court adopts the last, declaration as the
Will of the testator.
The proposition that "military power should
not be allowed to interfere with the relations
of servitude," is a declaration of policy which
is abandoned in the next sentence of the same
communication, by the enunciation of a prin-
ciple and its application through the military
power, or as he expresses it, " military necessity"
to the destruction of the very servitude with
which it was his pretended policy not to inter-
fere. The principle is applied in detail to
Missouri, Maryland, and Virginia, Avith the
remark that its success is only a question of
time.
The draft, which is so persistently placed to
the account of Mr. Lincoln, and which is the
source of so much discontent, like all the other
odious measures of Mr. Lincoln's administra-
tion, was first recommended by Gen. McClellan,
as will appear from the following note from
Gen. McClellan to Mr. Lincoln, to be found ia
McPherson's documents, page 274 :
Washington, Aug. 20, 1861.
Sir — I have just received the endorsed dis-
patch in cypher. Col. Marcy knows what he
says, and is of the coolest judgment.
I recommend that the Secretary of War ascer-
tain at once by telegram how the enrollment
proceeds in New York and elsewhere, and if it
is not proceeding with great rapidity draft to be
made at once. We must have men without de-
lay. Respectfully your obedient servant
GEORGE B. McCLELLAN.
Maj. Gen' I U. S. A.
The impossibility of giving a true and faithful
history of Gen. McClellan without offending
those who advocate his vain pretensions has
hitherto, we have no doubt, prevented the at-
tempt, and induced those who cannot defend him
but acquiesce in his nomination, to delight their
hearers with their amiable peace speeches. Har-
12
ing themselves surrendered to the despotism of
party, they would now enslave rather than en-
lighten the public mind by dealing in the
recorded and inexorable truths of history.
The shackles of party must be broken;
slavery of conscience and opinion be destroyed,
and man left free to reason himself into the
perception of truth and freedom before he is
capable of self-government.
The draft and other evils -which have so sorely
oppressed and afflicted our country for the
past three years are, in truth, the mere erup-
tions of the common virulence of civil war
that can only be alleviated by the benign influ-
ence of peace. As long as the people favor a
continuance of the war, they must be prepared
for a continuance of its multiplying evils.
Men and money are the sinews of war, and if
they are not voluntarily contributed, the appli-
cation of force for such purpose is as necessary
as the war itself.
We should not deceive ourselves by indulging
the insaue idea that war can be conducted
without men or money, or the occurrence of
those dreadful evils that our experience proves
to be, the natural historical concomitants of
fraternal strife. Concession and compromise
are the only highways to peace, in which all
patriots and christians should travel.
The bloody path of war strewn with the
wrecks of free government leads to desolation
and death.
Robbery and violence lose not their criminal
qualities in consideration of the personages by
Whom they are committed or protected. And if
a continuance of the war under Mr. Lincoln is
wrong, its continuance under Gen. McClellan
would be criminal. There is no middle ground
between peace and war, except that which is
the centre between two points of right and
wrong— like the antagonism between truth and
falsehood it is utterly irreconcilable; and if this
8'iicidal war is to be continued, it is our best
judgment and fondest hope that it may be con-
ducted to its close by the party in power — that
humanity may be spared the last pangs of re-
morseful conscience, and the soul of Democracy
be free from its stain. Far better that Democ-
racy should wear the chain of slavery to the
grave of liberty, or sink into that gulf that
threatens to embosom our country, than coalize
With infamy and vice, or become the execution-
er of its country's freedom.
The dangers thai environaour country are not
to be found in any political organization or
principle, now publicly avowed or acknowl-
edged— but in the vast opportunity which war
has opened to the rapacity of mankind.
Capital throughout the world is now in the
field with its marshaled hosts, reinforced by
seven thousand five hundred millions of public
indebtedness, (as the aggregate of both sec-
tions, ) with drawn sabres, ready to charge upon
liberty and free government. Our loss is their
gain ; our fields of carnage and desolation are j
the sources of their power, and the foundation
of their hopes — and with the death of liberty
comes the resurrection of despotism and the
triumph of the rich over the poor — capital over
labor. The struggle that awaits us, and which
is to decide the fate of self-government in this
hemisphere will be fought by foreign and do-
mestic capital combined, to foreclose the mort-
gage of war upon our goods and chattels, lands,
tenements, and form of government, upon the
one side, — and the labor and industry of the
country upon the other. The princes of Europe
whose thrones were trembling before the suc-
cessful march of our experiment are gazing with
unmingled delight upon their hopeful future,
and eager to unite their arms to the cause of
capital and despotism for the common subjuga-
tion of our country, north as well as south, and
the re-establishment of the odious doctrines of
passive obedience and non resistence, snatching
from the people their inherent rights, and again
planting upon the soil of America the victori-
ous standard of the king and the parliament.
The North-west, and great valley of the
Mississippi, were already regarded with suspi-
cion and jealousy, lest their pursuits, coupled
with a native independence of thought and
action inspired by their love of liberty and
free government, should lead them in defence
of a common right, and the altars of their
uncorruptible fathers — to thwart the well set-
tled plans of a monied aristocracy to drive
them from the independent and honorable po-
sition of American proprietors, to the degrad-
ing European vassalage of mere tenants of a
soil which is theirs by all the laws of inheri-
tance and purchase.
It is a country so vast in resources, and so ca-
pable of almost unlimited expansion, that it is
now tempting the cupidity and rapacity of the
plunderers of mankind. A moneyed aristoc-
racy under the vanguard of miliary necessity,
threatens the citadel of our future hopes.
Hating our form of government which makes
men equal, and protects alike the rich and the
poor, they still admire the comfort of our
homes, are dazzled with the treasures of our
lands and fields, and captivated by the variety
and productiveness of our soil and climate.
In other words, while they despise Pharaoh,
they long for the onions and garlic of Egypt.
III. In order to complete the organization of
the Peace and State Rights Party of the future,
we must not only declare the cardinal princi-
ples of Democracy, and place its standard in
representative hands; but we should make a
prompt application of the resolutions of Ken-
tucky and Virginia to the actual facts of the
first truly great crisis for which they were
written as a guide.. The puny attempts at
consolidation by the alien and sedition laws,
were as nothing compared to the dangers from
centralization and abolitionism. These crimes
against government and society are great
13
enough to swallow all their predecessors, and
to make an end of our institutions. We might
enlarge on the charges against Lincoln's civil
administration of affairs, and we might dis-
cuss the hopeless military efforts at subjuga-
tion of the South ; but we choose to waive
them both in this address, and to dwell on vio-
lations of the true theory of the Federal Con-
stitution, which have compelled us to organize
the Peace Party upon the basis of State Plights ;
and to take sides with Thomas Jefferson's
gpinions for State Sovereignty against the
false theory of consolidation. With a fidelity
worthy of a better cause, and with a sagacity
which is more 'han the cunning of little
minds, but less than the wisdom of a states-
man, Mr. Lincoln has clung to his errors of
constitutional doctrine, announced first at
Indianapolis on starting to Washington, iu
1861, that he could see no difference between
the position of a County in a State, and that of
a State in the Union ; and finished when he
told the Chicago clergy that he felt that he
had the right to do anything, he thought best
for the good of the country. It behooves us to
take a lesson from Mr. Lincoln. And that les-
son is that the Democratic leaders have not con-
centrated the part!/ upon an opposite doctrine,
and made the rugged issue of principle tested by
the constitution.
No resolute Peace and State Rights Party
can submit in their steadfast devotion to the
public good to any other doctrine than'that the
war itself is a violation of the constitution —
is absolutely forbidden. That true position
places them upon the rock of principle, which
their antagonists must assail at great disad-
vantage. It denies utterly the right of coer-
cion ; and puts the federal system on the foun-
dation of State consent for each and all the
parties to a voluntary union during pleasure.
If the Northern States, disgusted with slave-
holders, had seceded, there would have been
but one opinion among us, about the wrong of
coercion, because of the right of secession ; and
war, to supply the place of volition, if proposed
by the South, would have been derided by the
North. And yet principle is not a geographi-
cal nor a personal matter. We must insist
that Mr. Lincoln has mistaken his office and
our rights ; and assert against nim and his
followers, the equality, independence and sove-
reignty of the States, and the voluntary nature
of the Union which he is fighting to reestab-
lish because he believes it compulsory. Dem-
ocratic leaders have been false to the country
in all this struggle. They have made their pri-
vate griefs the occasion of complaint, instead
of the organic disturbance of our institutions.
A procession of States, headed by New York
and closed by Ohio, demanded Mr. Vallandig-
ham from arbitrary exile of the President.
Not disputing his war doctrine, they seemed
to '-e unbelievers in sovereign States, and a
volunta::- union — consolidationists in fact; and
his reply was conclusive. " The country is in a
war of self-preservation. Why should I shoot
the poor deserter for example's sake, and for-
give Mr. Vallaudingham who does not differ
with mc intelligibly about our constitutional
system, but does an injury a thousand times
greater to the cause? " Unless Mr. Vallandig-
ham ceases to talk of the sovereignty of the
Federal Government, and with his friends goes
for correct doctrine, and asserts the sovereign-
ty of the States, and their voluntary union,°he
must accept his fate as perfectly legitimate.
Habeas corpus is not for such consolidationists ;
and their appeals to the British precedents
have a like answer. That cruel government
in the same circumstances, would not only
suspend the writ altogether, but hang up or
cut down the whole itinerating fraternity by
thousands without remorse. Well do we know
whereof we affirm. The error of Mr. Vallan-
digham was his ignorance of the nature of the
Federal Government, and his half truth that
he had a right to protection from arbitrary
arrest, but concealing the fact, that he had beeu
caught flagrante delicto opposing an administra-
tion in a great war. His clamor was nonsense
if the majority of States can rightfully coerco
a single State; and he must be brought to say
that the right of coercion cannot exist, because
there is a right of secession, and two opposing
rights are impossible. There can be no reaj
check to the war short of exhaustion, till new
leaders put their opponents in the wrong and
themselves in the right upon the total uncon-
stitutionality of the was. The Kansas case
might teach us a lesson against prevarication.
In that convulsion half truth only was avowed,
and the question, at issue throughout all the
disgraceful folios of reports and speeches waa
never stated by our side. Mr. Douglas claimed
the right of self-government for squatters, With-
out disclosing that they were exercising under
that disguise the more than despotic power of
excluding from settlement, half the States who
were joint owners of the territories ! Will
the Democracy be always afraid of the truth ?
Are they afraid of it now ?
It takes a creed as well as followers to or-
ganize a party, and nothing can be hoped from
mere unorganized opposition, or organized op-
position not directed by principle. Mr. Lin-
coln has his theory that the American States
arc counties ; that he is an Emperor, (Impera-
tor) whose war powers, or his rightful func-
tions as President commanding-in chief, or,
alas, the military necessity, authorise to play
the autocrat to force the loan of the last dollar,
and to require at his will the last life from the
North for the conquest of the South. Acting
upon these despotic and sanguinary doctrines,
Mr. Lincoln has destroyed our federal system,
from the very beginning of his term, and ho
should be met eye to eye and face to face, by
the absolute denial of his creed, and the asser-
tion of the opposite, as well as by the selection
u
of a representative candidate on the true
Jeffersonian grounds that he is "honest, capa-
ble and faithful to the Constitution."
The Democratic creed is wholly adverse to
consolidation. And that creed springs from
the history and philosophy of the federal sys-
tem; of which the first Kentucky resolution is
the best expression, as we have previously de-
monstrated.
Let us consider the prominent measures of
consolidation and first of the so called " na-
tional'forces." Each State should assert her
iwn sovereignty as the vital spark of her
existence, without which she must die, and she
must insist that she claims the allegiance of
her citizens against the Federal Government's
conscriptions.
The militia of the States cannot be taken
away by force, nor under cover of unconstitu-
tional law and by connivance of mercenary
and criminal judges, Governors and legisla-
tures. And it is the right, it is the highest
duty of every State, to interpose her sovereign-
ty against these drafts of millions from the
people's choicest children. Since January last
1, '200,000 young men have been called for by
the President, and within a year another mil-
lion will be wanted. When the ship is being
gunk by the captain with all on board ; or the
house is set on fire by a servant over the heads f
of his master's family, it is time to make the
last effort to save them and to save themselves.
On God's footstool there is no such dreadful
picture as the crowds of thousands of poor men
and their wives by their sides, trembling on
their feet before a provost marshal and provost
guard, who are drawing the names of con-
ecripts from a wheel which sends the husband
and father like an unwilling bullock to the
slaughter pens, while his wife almost a widow
8tarves amidst her children. In this free land
Polvphemus caves abound above ground, and
the only question for whole neighborhoods is
the question of Ulyses — who shall be last de-
voured ? Terror has stricken the survivors,
and the Peace, and State Rights Party alone
can save them from the catastrophe.
The Democratic creed respecting negro slav-
ery for many years has been shamefully
foolish, timid, and contradictory. We must
hereafter speak the truth on that subject for
the sake of our own laborers and our own
property and safety. Our past leaders have
left this great duty to go by default, because
they have been afraid to testify to what they
believe. We must do it now, or ourselves share
their guilt. Negro slavery by the whites is a
thing alien to us, for we have not been forced
by circumstances to organize a society of
whites and blacks. If wc had been so situated
we could not have done otherwise than the
slaveholder has done, aud he has done some-
thing formidable for war, since he took up
arms, as he had before surpassed the world in
the arts of peace, particularly in agriculture.
He is the first producer and the first warrior of
his day, because he has made the most of hia
means, and organized them according to the
true system applicable to the case. Where two
races come in contact by millions, one inferior
the other superior, there is nothing for it but
slavery. The presence of the helpless class
compels the superior to set the tasks and re-
quire obedience, whether he will or not; or
else the two races will perish together or ex-
terminate one another.
For forty years the protective tariff policy
of New England has violated the Constitution
and plundered the country upon the most pal-
pable pretences, Its encouragement of manu-
factures is the discouragement of agriculture,
and trades not protected; its protection of
American industry is not an advance of wages,
but an increase of dividends ; its home demand
for the produce of the country is only a dimi-
nution of the supply, by forcing the field
hands into shops; its independence of foreign-
ers is dependence upon them as borrowers of
money to build factories, instead of meeting
them on equal terms as venders of produce;
its development of the country is an exagger-
ation of our cities, its stimulation of trade is
the oppression of commerce. The payment of
import duties is just as stringent as any other
tax; its convenience is a negation of princi-
ple; its uniformity is a sham, a delusion, and
a snare, for it falls very partially on certain
pursuits, and on a part of the property of a
part of the country; its heavy cost of collec-
tion is hid in the importer's profits; its com-
plexity enables our government to extort im-
mensely by fraud, what the despot gets by
force. And yet upon such, and other fallacies,
at least a thousand millions of dollars have
been unfairly extracted from producers of
every class by the tariff acts of Congress; and
our access has been barred to the markets of
the woiAd for the annual crops of grain and
provisions ; and finally, by plausible appeals
to morbid sentiments on slavery, New England
has poisoned the Great West against her best
friends, her Southern customers, and has in-
stituted the present tariff war with her blind
co-operation, a war whose burthens have fallen
on all the sections except New England, while
she has reaped a golden harvest.
The Peace and State Rights party knowing
that men and money are the sinews of war,
and that they have been obtained by means of
the draft and by the issue of immense sums of
paper money, have in the previous part of the
Address dwelt upon the injustice and illegality
of the draft. The banking system is an equally
false system, however organized. With less
powers for evil, it has repeatedly desolated the
whole country, especially the families which
live by labor, and the agriculturalists, and
more especially the Northwest. Banking is a
corporate monopoly of the legitimate credit
of a community by the privileged few who
15
pretend to possess gold and silver, from which
circle, farmers and laborers are necessarily
excluded. These monopolists protected from
personal liability by charters ; borrow gratui-
tously of the people millions of credit, place
it in their banks and thence issue it out in
discounts at high interest to their customers,
the merchants and traders. A splendid living
is thus made on little or nothing but the pub-
lic's gullibility, for there would be just as
much credit in the country if not a bank
existed, and it would be cheaper for those
who wanted it. When a crash comes the
banker retires rich, but the holders of his
bank promises to pay must pocket the loss.
This iniquitous system is the periodical plague
of the producers, and especially the farmers,
and it is fearfully raging now under govern-
ment high pressure stimulation, and should
be denounced in every Democratic Address
Kings clip the coin to cheat the people ; Con-
gress counterfeits it for the same purpose.
There was an evasion of all these matters
in the Convention proceedings; a complete
abandonment of principle in its results, and
a surrender to the enemies of Peace and State
Rights.
The supreme calamity of party infidelity
has therefore befallen our Democracy. The
party has been utterly misrepresented by the
delegates who have thus attempted to bind it
to the war chariot of a Major General of the
army. The platform is a war platform, and
the candidate is Major General McClellan.
The Peace professions and Peace principles
which pervade the mass of the people West
and East are set aside for the purpose of con-
tinuing the policy and usurpations of Mr. Lin-
coln. The Convention system has become more
than ever cornpt and irresponsible, for it has
enabled the managers who pursue their own
private interest, to thwart almost universal
and public interest, and the public sentiments
of honor and duty, and to frustrate the very
latest and clearest expressions of their con-
stituents. Peace, peace, peace, and all that
comes with it; peace on honorable terms as
between sensible men alike interested, was
the demand of the masses; and the business
of the Convention was to give effect to the
demand by a declaration of principles on a
Peace platform, and by placing a Peace candi-
date upon it. Standing amidst the wide-spread
ruin of our country, wrought by bad coun-
sels, and by head-strong passions after suf-
fering the waste and carnage of three long
years of sectional war, our people sighed for
peace, and an immediate settlement With the
secceding States. This bloody business of
sending mothers' and fathers' sons from the
North to slaughter other mothers' and fathers'
sons at the South, upon their own native soil
and amid their hearths and altars, has become
an offence to Heaven itself, which we feel to
be not only wrong but horrible. Every village
and homestead have lost their lustiest and
their brightest youth by disease and battle;
the chances of return are often one in ten, or
one in eight, or six, or four; the regiments
which so bravely bore their colors to the front
three years ago, and a thousand strong, as they
thought, to victory and glory, come back not
as they went, but in staggering and scattered
ranks, still brave to a fault, but only the sha-
dow of themselves. Mouring is in every house-
hold, anguish in every heart, lamentation in
every part of the deserted and afflicted land.
The rude coffin that brings back the unrecog-
nized remains of the once strong and proud
hero of his mothers and his fathers heart; the
pompous catafalque of some fallen general
borne home for splendid burial, the fresh
graves all over the battlefields wet with blood
and consecrated to the demon of homicide,
testify to the mighty madness as well as to
the terrible cost of this fraternal strife.
And as usual with mortals in anger, we see
but halt the truth ; our Southern brethren are
at least equal sufferers, and the ruder sex of
both sections suffer scarcely more than the
gentle. In the month of August, 1864, and at
the hands of the Chicago Convention we should
have commenced the beginning of the end of
such a state of things, repugnant as they are
to law, religion, and justice, and repulsive as
they are to all the finer feelings of human
nature. But the vast majority of the dele-
gates favoring a contiiruance of the war con-
trary to the wishes of their constituents, and
not even masking their design, nominated
Major General McClellan, whose condemned
official action resulting in his retirement from
the army, forms his only claim to the position
of candidate of the Democracy; but whose
violations of State Rights and the Rights of
man are worse than Abraham Lincoln's. It
may be that cruelty has become a chronic
disease, and that like the tyrant of Argos, those
managers have so long dabbled in others blood,
that they have become frenzied with excite-
ment. God grant that his royal taste may net
be adopted by this nation. He looked upon
the mass as the common herd born to till the
earth a few brief years for him and then to
sleep beneath it, or rising at their master's
call to smite, and be smitten into a festering
mound of crime and death. Is it possible that
our tyrant at the North, by name called the
majority, but in fact, the majority of that
majority, the caucus of this majority, or an
irresponsible committee of safety consisting
of a few bad leaders, have silenced the holy
service of religion, the veneration for virtue,
the remembrance of home, the respect for
human life ?
The Chicago Convention have done the worst
thing possible. They have misrepresented the
people in a matter involving their liberty,
safety, honor, and institutions. The people
should condemn their action by repudiating
16
their candidate and his vaunted record, and
the Democratic party should at once begin to
or2ani7.e themselves upon State Rights and
Peace doctrines for the future. Acting in that
great name, this Convention assembled at Cin-
cinnati, to protest against what has been so
unwisely and offensively done, make their
appeal to that final American tribunal, the
•wisdom and patriotism of the people of the
sovereign States. We reject the Chicago plat-
form and candidate: such action is but another
combination of abolitionism and consolidation;
it proposes only a change of masters, but not a
change of system. Like Abraham Lincoln's
policy, identical with it, the McClellan policy
is a total overthrow of all principle, right and
justice; its two legs are the same with which
the former has bestrode the Constitution, and
they are, the compulsory union of the States,
called by both, the unity of this continent; and
the forcible abolition of negro slavery, or the
emancipation of four millions of helpless human
beings not fit to be free, by the sword. Thus,
we have before us two candidates. but no choice.
Both the nominees, although hailing from op-
posite parties, represent the same political
ideas, and one policy on the subject of the war.
Why is this? How is this? Or ia it without a
why or a wherefore, that the States and peo-
ples of the States of the North and West have
have thus imposed upon them candidates that
although coming from different quarters are
neither of them Democrats, but both federal-
ists ? The rejection of the State Rights doc-
trine of 1798 ; of Jefferson's doctrine, was
logical and inevitable from a Convention which
nominated McClellan, and proclaim between
the South and North eternal war. Are this
Major Geueral and eternal war, the true ideas
of our Democratic masses East and West? No,
emphatically no; not at all; but the contrary.
Who then, and what can account for such a
nominee and such a creed ? The answer to the
question is, but one set of men, and one eom-
mon purpose can account for it. and these are
the holders of the Railroad monopolies, who
have kept the Mississippi river closed; or
rather, vsho shut it by war on the Constitution
aud Union, as well as on the South, in order to
compel the transportation at ruinous cost, of
beef, pork, corn and other produce of the Val-
ley by force over their rails, instead of its
natural outlet: the holders of the shipping
Monopolies which transport the annual crop to
the markets of the word: the holders of the
hundreds of millions of untaxable federal
stocks : the holders of other millions of Atlan-
tic B ink Stocks, whose capital has been bor-
rowed by the Treasury to carry on the first
year's war: the manufacturers of high tariff
goods in New Englsnd, whose boarding .and
clothing and lodging, the West would have
made money by paying for the last thirty
years, instead of submitting to such highly pro-
tected monopolies. The Chicago Convention —
a Democratic convention — was stormed by such
troops as these, led on by the abolitionists, and
foreign and domestic capital, the former being
the worst enemies of the negro race, whom they
ought to hate worse than they do their mas-
ters, and the latter, being the worst enemies
of the Federal constitution, which they never
did understand, and never wilt appreciate nor
respect.
These are the only parties who have any
candidate for the Presidency now before the
people, and who have controlled the country
to its shame and ruin for four years past, and
who expect to deceive and overpower the peo-
ple on the farms and in the shops, and at work
elsewhere in the business of production. It
is a strife of traders against producers, capi-
tal against labor, of systems and not of men ;
it means the change of society as well as gov-
ernment ; they are after the last dollar and the
the last man. They both propose a monyed
and military aristocracy, instead of an equal
simple and responsible democracy. As we
love liberty and the free institutions which
alone can protect it; we must overcome all
this monstrous doctrine; we must defeat and
disgrace its leaders; we must reverse it3 posi-
tion in the country; we must utterly refuse to
support it at the polls.
The State Rights party, the Peace party, the
People's party present this appeal to the masses
all over the United States from the decision at
Chicago, and we have set forth the dangers,
and described the Jeffersonian principles and
the representative men whereby the party of
the future must be organized. We have done
our work in withstanding the first shock of
prejudice in favor of convention proceedings,
and it is for the people with their sober second
thought to say whether in a most overwhel-
ming case of danger, they will not take juris-
diction, and enter their decree of reversal.
Whatever may be the result of the election,
there can be no doubt of the ultimate result
if their sovereign will becomes allied to the
Constitution.
The war will then be stopped, because waste-
ful, fruitless, and shameful, but above all, uncon-
stitutional, the Federal Capitol will be occupied
by patriotic democrats ; the abolitionists and
consolidationists, will be scourged from the
temple which our fathers consecrated to the
sacred cause of Human Rights.
Committee on address and resolution con-
sisted of the following named persons :
James W. Singleton, I. J. Miller, Josiah
Snow, Lafe Devlin, Alexander Long, W. C,
Jewctt, IV, M. Corry. i
Report of the Committee unanimously adop-
ted by the Convention, and proceedings or-
dered to be published.
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